Antenna problems tangibly affecting iPhone 4 sales?

updated 10:50 am EDT, Wed September 8, 2010

by MacNN Staff

Impact of AT&T exclusivity may be more powerful

Even if the iPhone may be doing well as a rule, flaws in the iPhone 4's antenna design may be having a noticeable effect on sales, suggests Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster. The firm recently interviewed 258 people in Minneapolis on the topic, of whom 69 percent were aware of a quality issue. Of that group, 20 percent -- or 35 people -- said the problem swayed their decision on buying an iPhone 4.

While Apple's gaffe may be "removing upside potential" for the iPhone, the real ceiling on sales is the lack of a Verizon option, says Munster. The analyst claims that for every person who was aware of the antenna problem, about three complained about the absence of Verizon. The carrier could potentially gain the iPhone 4 in the next few months.

The potential damage of signal problems is of concern to investors, Munster notes. "In order to quantify a worst-case scenario, we estimate that 40% of all iPhone sales are domestic (was 38% in the June quarter). We are modeling for Apple to sell 11m iPhones in the Sept. quarter, implying about 4.4m domestic sales. If Apple lost 20% of those sales, or 880k units, it would reduce our EPS estimate in the quarter by $0.11, from $3.72 to $3.61."

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TOTAL_COMMENTS Comments

There continues to be waiting period for the iPhone. Most stores sell out the same day they get them, and online, you have to wait for it to arrive (and it ships directly from China to your US home, mind you).

Apple has been ramping up the production ever since the launch, and they are scrambling to bring more assembly lines online. So, if Apple sells every single iPhone it makes within a few hours of it leaving the assembly line, how much more they could possibly sell if there weren't for this alleged "antenna problem"?

I've used my iPhone in both Canada and New York, performance was much better on the Canadian carrier Rogers Wireless quicker response on 3G no signal problems and overall better battery life because the Rogers network is much more responsive.

AT&T is extremely spotty to the point where it makes the signal strength and the data connection indicators on the iPhone useless. Regardless of what the iPhone says it's connected to Edge, GPRS, 3G and how the strong the signal strength is. AT&T gives the Apple iPhone a bad name because of their unreliable network.

I drop enough calls courtesy of ATT now, and I didn't want to yet another way to cause problems with my phone. So ... I said to myself: Why spend more money to get a phone that might be worse off in an area that's already a pain in the neck?

A sample size of 258 in a single city that is trying to predict the actions of dozens of millions of people around the world, is absurd.

Go back to your Statistics and Probability 101 class and you will realize that this "survey" is entirely useless for predicting the actions of anyone besides those 258 people. It is not a large enough nor diverse enough sample of people from which to derive the behavior of anyone.

Why is this news? It is just an advertisement for an opinion of Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster.

I drop enough calls courtesy of ATT now, and I didn't want to yet another way to cause problems with my phone. So ... I said to myself: Why spend more money to get a phone that might be worse off in an area that's already a pain in the neck?

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